(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hot clamping method and a clamping cooling apparatus, and more particularly, to a hot clamping method and a clamping cooling apparatus which has a faster processing speed and reduced installation costs while having better performance than existing hot stumping methods.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Hot stamping is a process that enhances the strength of a raw material by two, three or more times through the quenching effect in a such manner that the cut material (e.g., a steel plate) is heated at a high temperature and formed in a mold and then is cooled down in the mold so that the temperature of the raw material is rapidly lowered.
FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating a hot stamping method according to the related art, and FIG. 2 is a series of views illustrating the process of a hot stamping method according to the related art.
Referring to FIGS. 1-2, according to the existing hot stamping method, a blanking process to cut a material is performed, the material is put into a heating furnace to be heated at a temperature from 750 degrees to 1000 degrees, and then the heated material is hot-formed into a resulting shape and cooled down in the mold with coolant. By doing so, hardness is increased and material deformation is prevented. In the final process, laser trimming is performed to remove unnecessary portions other than the product.
Undesirably, the existing method has shortcomings in that it takes a long time during the hot-forming and rapid cooling process such that productivity is low, the laser trimming also requires a long time and high costs, and it is difficult to maintain a temperature during the hot-forming process which results in variations in the quality of panels depending on the hot-forming.